Jack's A King

Nicklaus' Masters Win In '86 A Classic.

April 7, 1996|By MICHAEL MAYO Staff Writer

Sure enough, Nicklaus holed the putt and the charge was on. He made birdie putts of 25 and 22 feet at the 10th and 11th, missed a 5-foot par putt at No. 12 after it hit a spike mark. He reached the green in two at No. 13 and two-putted for birdie, parred No. 14, then hit a 203-yard 4-iron to 12 feet at the par-5 15th.

When he made that putt, Jackie lept into the air.

"I said, `You never jumped that high playing basketball,'" Nicklaus recalled. "And he said, `I never got that excited playing basketball.'''

At the par-3 16th, Nicklaus curled a 175-yard 5-iron to within 3 feet of the cup for another birdie and he got his final one at the 17th. Then he got some help from Ballesteros (who rinsed one at 15 going for the green and took another bogey at 17), Kite (who missed a 12-foot tying birdie putt at 18) and Norman (who bogeyed the final hole when he hit his approach into the gallery).

"That putt never went left all week in practice," Kite said about his final birdie attempt. "How that putt did what it did, I cannot tell you."

How Nicklaus did what he did was nearly as inexplicable.

A decade later, that back-nine charge remains the defining golfing moment of a generation, rivaled perhaps only by Tom Watson's chip-in against Nicklaus at Pebble Beach's 17th hole in the 1982 U.S. Open.